Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerNewark Mayor Cory Booker joins Police Director Garry McCarthy, Essex County Sherriff Armando Fontura and other law enforcement officers for a press conference at the Garden Spires housing complex on 1st Street this afternoon. Dubbed as "Operation Justice", police this morning executed arrest and search warrants targeting several key players in the narcotics trade as well as more than 60 people wanted for other offenses.
NEWARK — Garden Spires apartment complex in Newark has seen its fair share of trouble over the years: people shot and killed in stairwells and its front doors. And a drug trade so busy and so lucrative that Mayor Cory Booker likened it to a McDonald's drive-in.

"It reached a point to being ridiculous," said Booker, who famously camped in 1999 outside the twin high-rise buildings when he was the Central Ward councilman to draw attention to the drug problems there.

"The Newark Police Department will not allow the Garden Spires to go back to what it once was," said Police Director Garry McCarthy, who promised to have officers patrolling the buildings around-the-clock.

During the months-long operation, undercover narcotics officers made drug buys and gathered intelligence that eventually netted 149 arrests — those arrested today— plus seven guns that have been linked to other violent crimes in the city and East Orange, McCarthy said.

Gustavo Medina, police deputy director who oversees the gangs and narcotics bureau, said the investigation also yielded close to $50,000 worth of drugs. Booker said hundreds of thousands to a million dollars of drug money a year have passed through the Garden Spires.

The investigation was modeled after drug operations at other housing complexes, including Pennington Court and Stephen Crane Village, Booker said. He said officers continue to patrol those locations regularly.

Some residents were skeptical of the busts.

"My whole thing is they can’t arrest their way out of the problem. There needs to be alternatives to crime," said Munirah Bomani, tenant president of the complex. The root cause of the problem, he said, is poverty.

Two residents, who declined to give their names for fear of retribution from drug dealers, said city officials have promised to eradicate crime at the Garden Spires before, but police didn’t stay long enough — including after Booker camped out at the complex several years ago.

Essex County Sheriff Armando B. Fontoura admitted that "We didn’t hold our ground," but the sheriff promised police were here to stay and warned drug users, especially ones who traveled from outside on Route 280, to not come to the Garden Spires any longer. He said their business was no longer welcome.